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Thursday, August 25, 2016

Music Ideas to Support K - 5 Curriculum

I taught the course at USF (Univ of S Florida) on "Using Music in the Elementary Classroom"; AND, the dean let me try it from a different perspective. Instead of teaching my students how to teach music, I taught how to use music to teach. That, I believe, is a more practical approach.

Getting the whole child involved in an activity that is interesting, fun and engaging gets older children to learn more easily and retain longer. Here are two ideas. One is a math song for number sequencing. (One of my USF students came up with this idea. I thank her.) The other is a Language Arts Song.

Finding missing numbers is just everyday work.BUT ~ ~ being a spy, looking for missing numbers? Now, that's not math; that's playing spy! Children can have little magnifying glasses or wear Sherlock Holmes' hats and look for the numbers that you've laid on the floor all around the room.
This is done while the intro music is being played.
Click on links to hear / see the song.SpyNuMberS

Make the five sets of spyglasses for each number sequence; or, have the children make them. (Color coding them is a helpful tool for children who may need a little extra help.) Use this card with all the Spy Number Sequences to do the first run through all together. The second time around, the children take their numbers and insert them into the proper spot.
The more playful you are with this, the more they get into it.

How else to get children to understand that verbs are movement words than to have them MOVE to the words?

There are three sets of verbs. The first two sets are on cards the children hold. When they hear their verb, they hold it up and say the word and everyone repeats it and says "That's a verb!". Then, they do the movement. For the last set, there are no cards and you invite the children to call out their own verb. The game can continue on even after the song is over. Click on the link above the picture and see/hear the song.

You can download the cards for the words used in this song by clicking here :